Page 6

TWELVE YEARS OLD

“ Y ou thought to bring her here?” Zion asked, incredulous.

He and Annelise were arguing.

I’m not sure what she had been expecting. For me to run to her and pull her into my arms, happy to finally see her again?

No. I hadn’t seen her in seven years. I barely remembered her. As far as I was concerned, I only had one parent.

“I had nowhere else to go, Zion.” Annelise’s voice was pained.

I remained on the couch, feet propped up by the fire. I flipped the page to feign reading, but I was eavesdropping on their argument in the kitchen.

Annelise held the baby to her chest. I had never seen an infant so small…she had to be only a few days old if not hours. She brought the child to the fire, cocooning blankets around her to warm her. They continued to argue as if I weren’t even there.

“You’re sure?” Zion asked, running a hand through his inky black hair.

“Look at her, Zion,” Annelise replied, exasperated.

“She is your spitting image, Bird.” He smiled. The baby did look remarkably like Annelise for being so small. “Cursed with your magic, too.” He ran a hand down his face.

I perked up at this.

The child was a Stormshade?

How was it that I wasn’t born a Stormshade, but this measly little infant was? I was born with the wrong magic, different from everyone else in my bloodline, but my mother’s love child wasn’t? How was that fair?

I glanced from the book propped up before me to the infant by the fire. Despite being so young, she had a head full of auburn hair. I sneered, returning my gaze to the book.

Annelise had left us and come back with a child. It certainly wasn’t Zion’s child, so who was the father? As if plucking the thought from my mind, that was the exact question Zion asked next.

“Osiris’?” All he said was the king’s name.

Rumors had reached as far as Siraleth that the Dark King Osiris had taken a lover and planned to make her queen. I had never imagined it was my mother. I thought she would be too anxious to get back to us. To her family.

Annelise nodded solemnly. Zion shook his head.

“Annelise, you had to have known the risk… ”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “I thought the child might be like Donika. A Nightshade.”

I peeked at her over the edge of the book. Tears tracked down her cheeks. Her strawberry blonde hair was windswept, still pushed into the back of the hood on her cape. Her fingers were red with cold as she held them out to Zion, pleading.

“Can we please stay?”

Zion reeled back in surprise. “Of course you can stay, Anna. Why would you ask such a thing? This is your home .”

Was it?

It was my home.

And Annelise had never been a part of it as far as I could remember. I had one crystal clear memory of her…and that was it.

Her gaze fell to the floor, stricken. “Because Osiris knows what she is. She isn’t safe.”

Zion grasped her shoulder, pulling her into a warm embrace before the crackling fire. “Any kin of yours will be safe here. Donika will be a big sister.”

Annelise’s gaze flitted toward me for the first time and her eyes met mine. A soft gasp escaped her lips, and she stepped back, out of Zion’s arms.

“Her eyes—”

Zion simply shrugged. “She was a child when you last saw her. Children change as they grow, surely.”

Did Zion truly believe that? Or was he in denial about what had happened at Cirilla’s house? Had so much time passed, so many other thoughts occupying and consuming his mind, that he could have thought that to be the honest truth?

I smiled, but it never reached my newly cerulean eyes. “Welcome home, mother.”

Her brow knit together at the coldness of my words. I did not embrace her. I did not tell her I missed her terribly and was happy she was home. I simply closed the book and quietly returned to my room. I left the door creaked open so that I could still hear them from the living area.

“The tides are turning in Istmere. You have to know that. Osiris has a deep hatred for Stormshades.”

I snickered to myself at that. Something we had in common, then.

I desperately wanted to train in the king’s army full time.

This once-a-month trip to Akra that my parents had limited me to was no longer satisfying my craving to climb the ranks.

I was smarter than those my age. Stronger.

More powerful. If I asked if I could move there to train, would they let me?

“He does. And it is spreading across the realm like wildfire. Jealousy is at the root of it, if you ask me. We are more powerful. It’s as simple as that. When bound, we can access a new stream of energy through our storms, and there is no comparison to that kind of power.”

Bound? What did she mean by that?

“And you still have the other binding spell in place?” Zion asked. “To mask your Stormshade magic?”

I could see through the crack in the door that Annelise gave a tight nod.

“Good. Then you can stay here, and we will bind the child as well. Nobody will be able to track her. Nobody will be able to tell she is a Stormshade. We already have one Nightshade daughter, perhaps they will assume…”

“That is a good idea,” Annelise spoke with a nod.

Zion pulled her to him once more, and she sighed into his embrace, allowing him to pull her into the cocoon of his arms.

“I’ve missed you, Zion.”

He stroked her hair with a loving hand. “I’ve missed you too, Bird. Welcome home, Anna.”

When Zion spoke those words, they sounded much more sincere than when I had. Perhaps he truly was happy to have her home. I didn’t necessarily feel one way or the other, as long as nothing changed for me.

That is…until the baby began getting all the attention.

Not that I minded it terribly, it allowed me to spend more time studying and practicing my spells.

I had created a trap door beneath my bed that led down to the crawl space beneath my room.

It was there that I practiced the darkest spells I could muster from the Grishina grimoire, safe from prying eyes.

But everything was always about that mother damned Stormshade baby.

It had been just me and Zion for so long, I missed it.

The dynamic had changed entirely. Is the baby hungry?

Is the baby cold? Is the baby tired? When Annelise had first returned home, I had hoped she would dote on me at least a little.

That the time away would perhaps have made our bond stronger, despite my initial reservations upon her return.

That didn’t appear to be the case.

Except for the fleeting smile at the dinner table or the brief kiss goodnight, it was as if I were invisible. Perhaps she thought I was old enough now that I no longer wanted to be doted on.

Perhaps that should have been the case.

But on those sleepless nights where I lay awake, the Grishina grimoire tucked beneath my pillow, all I could think about was how it must feel to be that awful little Stormshade baby. To be so doted on and loved.

To be so perfect .

I would throw the covers off and slip beneath the floorboards, losing myself to my spells.

It felt as if they were all I had.